Inés Martínez Bustamante and Erik Langius, ECOFED project coordinators: “We are developing an open and federated European cloud ecosystem”

Digital sovereignty is a topic that’s currently receiving a lot of attention. This wasn’t the case in 2021. Even then, however, TNO recognised a growing risk of dependency in the way the cloud market was evolving. With funding from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, supplemented by co-financing from participating organisations, the ECOFED project was launched: European Cloud Services in an Open Federated Ecosystem.

Inés Martínez Bustamante, Senior Project Manager, and Erik Langius, Senior Scientist Integrator at TNO, jointly coordinate the consortium of five companies collaborating within ECOFED.

Erik explains: “The cloud market is dominated by three US providers. They have made it very easy for customers to get started, but extremely difficult to switch to another provider. That level of dependency has become far to high. As an independent applied research organisation, TNO typically looks four to five years ahead. Back in 2021, we explored whether we could initiate a project at EU level to help reduce reliance on such a small group of providers. We engaged with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). Like their European counterparts, they concluded that the cloud market is, economically speaking, a ‘failed market’. That prompted action at the level of the European Commission.”

An Open-Source, Multi-Provider Cloud Ecosystem

ECOFED is part of the IPCEI framework: Important Projects of Common European Interest. One of its domains is Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services (CIS), a major programme aimed at developing an open-source, multi-provider cloud ecosystem as a viable alternative to hyperscalers. “By ‘viable’, we primarily mean ease of use,” says Inés. “The overarching goal is to build a European federated cloud that offers the same level of user-friendliness as Google Cloud, AWS or Azure. The key difference is that, behind the scenes, our European cloud is composed of services delivered by multiple providers.”

To achieve this, ECOFED is developing a software layer that enables providers, each using their own technologies, to bring their services together within an open cloud ecosystem. In such an environment, services from different vendors can be combined and exchanged seamlessly. “We’re not starting from scratch” Inés clarifies. “Our approach is to build on what already exists.”

A Five-Party Consortium

TNO prefers to conduct research in close collaboration with industry partners, ensuring that project outcomes generate new economic activity and leave the sector in a stronger position than before. To that end, TNO consulted members of the Dutch Cloud Community to gauge interest in launching a project of this nature.

Erik: “We were looking for organisations with different roles within the cloud ecosystem, partners willing to contribute expertise and capacity, and to take on a degree of risk. We found that in Info Support, i3D.net, BIT and AMS-IX: parties that share the same vision and recognise that this challenge can’t be solved by a single company, but requires collaboration.”

Results

What’s been achieved since ECOFED began? Quite a lot, says Erik. “We’ve developed a protocol that allows a cloud infrastructure to be assembled in a tech-agnostic way. In practice, this means that any organisation wishing to become part of the European cloud ecosystem can continue using its own technology. This protocol effectively sits as a layer on top, enabling different technologies and environments to interoperate. We’re currently testing the specifications to validate whether the concept works in practice, and some components are already up and running.”

Inés adds: “Innovation is rarely a straight line, it’s often two steps forward, one step back. That said, we’re encouraged by the initial test results. Once the protocol is complete, we’ll make the specifications and reference implementations available to the market as open source.”

A Focus on Usability

Ultimately, ECOFED will only succeed of the specifications developed by the consortium are widely adopted by cloud service providers. This is why usability is a key priority, not only for end users, but also for the providers themselves. “The federated cloud we’re building must be easily accessible for providers who want to offer services, whether those are network services, data centre services or software applications,” says Inés. “Its success will depend on how many parties are willing to participate in such a European cloud.”

Erik is already engaging with European players in the cloud ecosystem to ensure they are aware of what’s coming and can start preparing. According to him, it’s not a day too soon. “We started this project because the cloud market wasn’t functioning properly. Today, sovereignty has become an even more pressing concern. The sooner we have a well-functioning, user-friendly and scalable alternative without vendor lock-in, the better.”